Sui­cide bomber at­tacks near US con­sulate in Saudi Ara­bia

A SUI­CIDE bomber blew him­self up near the United States con­sulate in Saudi Ara­bia’s Red Sea city of Jed­dah early yes­ter­day.

Se­cu­rity of­fi­cers be­came sus­pi­cious of a man near the park­ing lot of Dr Suleiman Faqeeh Hos­pi­tal, which is di­rectly across the US diplo­matic mis­sion.

When they moved in to in­ves­ti­gate “he blew him­self up with a sui­cide belt in­side the hos­pi­tal park­ing”, the in­te­rior min­istry said, adding that two se­cu­rity of­fi­cers were lightly in­jured.

A pic­ture car­ried by the Sabq on­line news­pa­per ap­peared to show a large body part ly­ing on the ground be­tween a taxi and the open door of an­other car, pep­pered with shrap­nel holes.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred on July 4, which is the In­de­pen­dence Day hol­i­day for the US.

Abu Bakr al-Bagh­dadi, leader of the IS ji­hadists which have seized ter­ri­tory in Iraq and Syria, has re­put­edly called Saudi Ara­bia’s Sunni rulers “apos­tate tyrants” and called on Saudis to rise against them.

The Sunni ex­trem­ist IS group also con­sid­ers Shi­ites to be heretics.

Saudi Ara­bia has car­ried out air strikes as part of a US-led mil­i­tary coali­tion against IS in Iraq and Syria.